Book review

Part 1 of the Railhead trilogy

Here’s a story about unintended consequences. Zen is a thief. He doesn’t
really steal stuff to order but Raven asks him to steal a little something.
Where’s the harm in that? It isn’t as though the whole known galaxy will
collapse in on itself or anything... will it?

In this world there are K-gates. Hyperspace portals for K-trains, old,
wise, sentient engines of the Empire, dreaming their dreams of speed and
distance, and singing their strange songs as they race from world to
world.

Only the Guardians know how it works. You step aboard a train, and
the train goes through a K-gate, and you step off on another planet, where the
sun that was shining on you a moment ago is now just one of those tiny stars
in the sky. It might take ten thousand years to travel that far by spaceship,
but a K-train makes the jump in seconds.

Can you imagine? Commuting through all those wild and beautiful worlds?
Crossing the entire galaxy, or do I mean universe in the blink of an eye? For
some, most of the population perhaps, it’s just another commute, but others
still sense the magic of it. That’s how it is for Zen, and that’s what makes
him a railhead. Of course when I say wild and beautiful worlds...some of them
are. That’s where the rich folk live. And some are mined out barren
wastes.

Zen’s hometown was a sheer-sided ditch of a place. Cleave’s houses
and factories were packed like shelved crates up each wall of a mile-deep
canyon on a one-gate world called Angkat whose surface was scoured by constant
storms.

At first Zen thinks the gold necklace he stole in the Ambersai Bazar is the
cause of all his problems...the security drones, the strange girl in the red
coat – that’s Nova the motorik by the way, and uh-oh! There seems to be
wartrain in Cleave. It surely can’t be after Zen Starling, can it?

It’s difficult in this story to be sure who is friend and who is foe. Whose
side should we be on – Yanvar Malik or Raven, the Empire or the rebel
individual? And does Zen really have a choice? Raven’s got him and Raven wants
him.

If you want to know what kind of man Raven is exactly you’ll have to read
the book...but there have been multiple versions of him around for a long long
time and Yanvar Malik just keeps on killing him, over and over again. What
kind of person do you become if you never expect to die? And what about Nova
the motorik? Zen has learned to despise wire dollies, but up close and
personal what’s the difference? Nova is intelligent, charming, funny,
affectionate, thoughtful, and she’s a bit of a railhead too. And if you’re not
a railhead yet you probably will be soon because these trains are just
fabulous.

He stood among trainspotters and excited children on the platform
and simply stared as the train pulled in. Those huge twin locos, the Wildfire
and the Time of Gifts, had been in the Noon family for centuries. Their curved
and complicated cowlings had been in and out of fashion so many times that
they had finally escaped it altogether and were just themselves: grand,
ancient, honey-coloured things with the worn beauty of old buildings. Behind
them were the five huge double-decker carriages which formed the quarters of
the Emperor and his inner circle. And behind those, curving away out of the
station and across the viaduct, were lesser carriages, all just as
beautiful.

‘Zen?’ said Nova, in his head. She stood just behind him, ignored
by the other sightseers. ‘I have sent a message to the Noon train to let them
know that you are here, and that you wish to board.’

And that’s sort of where it all starts to go wrong. Raven’s planned for all
eventualities but he didn’t foresee any of this stuff...

What can I read next?

Epic. You’ll find yourself reading it fast just to keep up with the action.
It’s part one of a trilogy so you can carry on:

Railhead

Black Light Express

Station Zero

And Philip Reeve has created another amazing world in his Mortal Engines
quartet: